In Saratoga, women win lawsuit over police locker room

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. -- A state agency has ruled that eight women employed by the Saratoga Springs Police Department should receive $5,000 each because they didn't have their own locker room and bathroom.

The Division of Human Rights ruled that the city should pay compensatory damages to the women for "mental anguish" they suffered because of the department contained unequal and discriminatory facilities for female employees.

The eight female officers and dispatchers filed a complaint against the city in 2007, claiming the lack of separate facilities made them fell "second class" to their male co-workers.

The ruling comes a year after the city spent about $7,700 to create a larger locker room and bathroom for female employees, who had been using a converted broom closet to change in.